Captain Nobody

by Dean Pitchford

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, hoping that she wouldn’t hear how furiously my heart was beating. “How’s Chris?”

  “Well, his color’s coming back,” she said brightly between sorting the mail and stirring a pot of chili on the stove. “He’d been looking sort of gray there for a few days, but today . . . bingo! The doctors are so pleased—all nine of them. He has nine doctors, imagine that. Matter of fact, there’s a specialist coming in to see him this afternoon. All the way from Minnesota!”

  Something was wrong. The more upset Mom gets, the faster she talks, and she was chittering away like a windup toy.

  “What’s the specialist coming for?” I just managed to ask before the phone rang. Mom held up a hold-that-thought finger before she answered. She listened for a moment and then covered the mouthpiece.

  “It’s . . . it’s about one of my houses,” she said nervously, though it clearly wasn’t. “Have a cookie. Have two,” she called out as she stretched the phone cord down the hall and into her office.

  I poured myself a glass of milk and switched on the little TV in the breakfast nook. Across the top of the screen a banner read: “Daring Daylight Heist.” The picture came into focus, and my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw that our local TV reporter was standing in front of Sullivan’s Jewelry Store!

  “. . . when, without warning, the robber demanded thousands of dollars in jewels and threatened the owners with a gun,” she was saying. “I asked the store’s owners to tell us how they reacted at that moment.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan appeared on-screen, standing behind the counter where I last saw them.

  “When the man first said he had a gun,” Mrs. Sullivan said in her lilting Irish way, “I’m afraid I just froze in me shoes.”

  “We both did, darlin’.” Mr. Sullivan patted his wife’s hand. “We’d probably still be standin’ here like two big, dumb rocks if it weren’t for the little guy who wandered in.”

  I spit milk from my mouth. “The little guy?”

  “Yes, they’re calling him ‘the little guy,’” the reporter seemed to answer me. “As you can see from this surveillance video”—they cut to a silent black-and-white video of the robbery—“the Sullivans and their assailant are apparently reacting to the entrance of another person into the store . . .”

  On the screen you could see the three of them turning to look at—hey! Where was I?

  “. . . but there are no pictures of the Sullivans’ savior.”

  “Yeah, the surveillance cameras are aimed so they only pick up normal-sized people,” a gruff policeman was explaining to the reporter. “Otherwise, the display cases block the view of anything, uh . . . subnormal. We suspect that the person the Sullivans saw was a midget.”

  “A midget?” I winced.

  “It’s clear that somebody interrupted this crime in progress,” the reporter was finishing up, “and, quite possibly, saved a couple of lives in the process. Exactly who that was will remain a mystery, although the Sullivans have a theory about their hero.”

  “We Irish have our legends about the wee folk who do good deeds,” Mr. Sullivan explained. “Leprechauns, we call them.”

  “This one wasn’t dressed in green,” Mrs. Sullivan laughed, “but he brought us luck, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Now I’m a leprechaun,” I groaned, before Mom suddenly appeared behind me. “Phone’s for you! It’s JJ.”

  Flustered, I took the receiver and answered, “What’s up?”

  “Are you watching the news?” JJ screamed.

  I hurried into the living room so Mom wouldn’t hear. “I just saw,” I whispered.

  “How amazing is that?” JJ squealed. “It’s your third day as Captain Nobody, and you’re already on the five o’clock news!”

  “Not if you look closely,” I said.

  “Well, okay, they didn’t get a shot of you, but we know who saved the day, don’t we?”

  “Yeah. It was a ‘little guy’ who’s either a ‘midget’ or maybe a ‘leprechaun.’ I’m branded for life.”

  “Nobody’s going to call you that once they learn what you did!”

  “JJ, we can’t talk about this. To anyone,” I stressed.

  “Why not?” she whimpered. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to anyone I know since my sister Theresa got stuck in the elevators at the mall for eleven hours and she had to pee in a cup.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty exciting,” I remembered. “But the last thing I want to do right now is to put my family in the middle of another crisis.”

  “But what if the robber didn’t have a gun?” she persisted. “And what if he didn’t threaten to hunt you down and hurt you?”

  “But he did.”

  “Okay, okay, we won’t tell anyone,” she mumbled. Then she perked up. “Except for Cecil! Who gets to tell Cecil?”

  Mom and I ate dinner together that night. Even though it was obvious that something was bothering her, she never brought it up. So finally I did.

  “Is something going on with Chris?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered too quickly. “No. Just the usual.”

  She smiled cheerfully, but her eyes were shiny wet. “But tell me about your day, Captain Nobody. Anything happen?”

  “Nope,” I lied. “Not a thing.” I stood and began to clear our plates.

  She started to rise. “Oh, I can do that.”

  I laid a hand on her shoulder and sat her down. “Relax, Mom. I got this.” I carried the dishes into the kitchen. A few minutes later, as I washed them at the sink, I heard Mom sniffling and blowing her nose into a napkin.

  I guess we both had our secrets.

  Before I went to bed that night, I took off my Captain Nobody costume and folded it carefully. I looked down at the clothes, thinking back to all that had happened in the short time I had been wearing them, and wondering if it was time to stop. After all, if I’d been dressed as Newt today, I would never have listened to JJ and agreed to talk to the Sullivans. So I would never have walked in on a crime in progress, and I wouldn’t have to live in fear for the rest of my life.

  On the other hand, I probably wouldn’t have saved the Sullivans from being robbed.

  Or gotten the chance to help Mr. Clay the day before.

  So . . . to be Captain Nobody or not to be. That was my question.

  That night I dreamed that Chris was sitting on the edge of my bed, flipping through one of my school-books, just like the time I got the mumps and had to miss school for two weeks. Chris arranged with my teacher to bring my homework home, and night after night he sat with me and explained the multiplication table and how to write a capital B in script.

  “Whoa, Chris! How are you?” I asked excitedly, sitting up and wrapping my arms around him.

  “Mom says my color’s returning,” he laughed. “And how about you? How you doin’, Captain?”

  When I heard him use my new name, I puffed up with pride, but before I could answer his question, Chris faded from view, and I was left hugging thin air.

  I woke to an empty house and ate breakfast standing up at the kitchen counter. I unfolded the Appleton Sentinel and couldn’t believe my eyes! There, on the front page, was the headline: “Appleton Police Arrest Armed and Dangerous Jewel Thief.”

  Apparently, the robber was still wearing the same baseball cap and sweatshirt when he went into a Mc-Donald’s near the Sullivans’ store. As he was ordering a Big Mac and a Coke, the five o’clock news came up on an in-store TV. Immediately, a lady pointed and screamed, “That’s the guy!” People started pelting the thief with burgers and french fries and milk shakes, and when he ran for the door, he slipped on all the wet food at his feet. The thief thrashed around on the sticky floor until a very brave—and very heavy—man sat on him and stayed there until the cops arrived.

  My whoop! of joy was so loud that our neighbors’ dogs started barking. I jumped off my stool and did a little victory dance around the kitchen, until I spied a ripped newspaper page sti
cking out of the trash bin. Why was Mom throwing out the paper before I’d had a chance to read it? The headline on that discarded page caught my eye: “Medical Expert Estimates Newman’s Okay for Six Days.”

  I snatched up the torn page and began to read how the brain specialist from Minnesota Mom had told me about had advised my parents and Chris’s doctors that they should have “no significant concern” about Chris’s condition . . . “unless it persists for more than six days.”

  Six days? It was now Wednesday. Chris had been tackled on Friday. I counted: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . . Tomorrow would be six days. He had to wake up tomorrow, or else . . . or else what?

  “What happens after six days?” I shouted at the newspaper in my shaking hands. I read the article three more times, but I still couldn’t find an answer. And then a sudden thought stopped me cold: Mom and Dad must be more worried than they had been letting on. I bet that’s why Mom had been fighting back tears the night before, and that’s why she had torn the article out of the morning paper.

  “Oh, my gosh!” I gasped when I made the biggest realization of all: Mom and Dad had been keeping me away from the hospital to protect me!

  A bunch of different feelings collided in my chest. I felt foolish for whining all week about wanting to visit Chris. Plus, I felt stupid for not figuring things out sooner. And, worst of all, I felt really, really scared.

  Back in my bedroom, my choice of clothes was an easy one. Now, more than ever, I needed the protection of Captain Nobody.

  17

  IN WHICH I CHEAT DEATH

  By the time I got to school, I had made a very important decision: If something was really wrong with Chris and about to get worse, then despite my parents’ concern, I wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing. I had stopped a robbery, for heaven’s sake!

  I vowed that, after school, I would catch the crosstown bus, I would walk into Appleton General Hospital, and I would demand to see my brother. And when they asked for identification, I would simply point to the letters C.N. on my face mask and ask, “Whose initials do you think these are?”

  “They caught your bad guy!” Cecil grinned as I filed into class with him and JJ. He faked a drumroll, ending with a realistic-sounding cymbal crash—“Bshhh!”

  “Now you can do interviews,” JJ whispered loudly. “And you can tell the world about Captain Nobody and his sidekicks, and how we—”

  “Please, JJ,” I stopped her. “Please, don’t.”

  The weary tone of my voice caused them to exchange a look.

  “What’s goin’ on, man?” Cecil asked with friendly concern. But before I could answer, Mrs. Young called out, “Settle down! Settle down! We have some very special visitors this morning.”

  Everyone quickly took their seats, buzzing with curiosity.

  “Our guests today are students at Fillmore High—isn’t that exciting?” Mrs. Young announced, “Let’s say hello to Fillmore’s head cheerleader Colby Bryn and, from the Ferrets’ championship football team, please welcome Darryl Peeps!”

  In the final seconds of the Big Game, Darryl Peeps was the running back who had taken my brother’s handoff and carried it halfway downfield before he got tackled. And Colby Bryn, dressed in her cheerleading outfit, looked even more awesome than she does at every football game.

  “I’m going to let Colby and Darryl tell you why they’re here,” Mrs. Young said.

  Colby tossed back her ponytail and began: “As many of you know, the Ferrets of Fillmore High School won the citywide football championship this past weekend. How cool is that?” She and Darryl pumped their fists and huffed, “Whoo whoo whoo!” A few of my classmates joined them.

  Then she got serious. “But, as I’m sure you’ve probably heard, our quarterback Chris Newman got hurt in that game.”

  JJ and Cecil turned to see my reaction, but I stared straight ahead, chin up.

  “Since Chris has been in the hospital,” Darryl Peeps said, “everyone at Fillmore High School has been pulling for him, but we’re also pretty bummed. And we know we’re not the only ones who are feeling that way.”

  “No, we’re not, Darryl,” Colby continued, as if she was reading from a script they had both rehearsed. “We’ve been deeply touched by the support of people in our community, people like you and your families.” She swept her arms open to include the whole class. “So the Spirit Squad came up with an idea that we thought would cheer everybody up during this difficult time. We decided to send our very own goodwill ambassador on tour.”

  “Please welcome our mascot . . .”—Darryl paused as he leaned out into the hallway and reentered with a large wire cage—“. . . Ferocious the Ferret!”

  I guess my classmates had never seen a ferret up close before, because they all jumped up and oohed and aahed as they crowded around the cage on Mrs. Young’s desk. I, however, stayed in my seat.

  Chris has shown me Ferocious the Ferret before. He looks like a puzzled cat whose body has been stretched long and low to the ground. My brother once told me that even though ferrets are known for nipping hands and fingers, Ferocious had been trained to be pretty gentle. Before every football game, the cheerleading squad pulls Ferocious around the field perched on top of a wagon that everybody calls the Ferret Ferrari.

  “We’re called the Ferrets of Fillmore,” Colby was explaining, “because ferrets are fighters. So to remind everybody of the fight that Chris Newman is putting up, we thought it would be a great idea to have Ferocious visit each classroom in Appleton Elementary School and spend a day with all you future Ferrets.”

  Mrs. Young gushed, “Isn’t that exciting, everybody?”

  “But that’s not all!” Darryl boomed. “One of you is going to get an extra dose of Fillmore spirit, because one lucky student will get to take Ferocious home overnight!”

  “Awesome!” a few kids exclaimed.

  “And when that fortunate Ferret-in-training returns Ferocious tomorrow,” Colby said, unrolling an official-looking scroll, “he—or she—will earn the title of ‘Friend of Ferocious’!”

  “Wow!” everyone sighed. Everyone, that is, except Basher, who sniggered, “Who wants to be friends with a rat?” which of course made Evan McGee giggle.

  Darryl held up a hand to signal for silence. “So now, the question is: Who will that special someone be?”

  A forest of hands abruptly sprouted around Colby and Darryl. “Oooh! Me!” “No, me!” “Pick me!” kids chanted, getting louder and louder until suddenly a shrill whistle split the air.

  Instantly, all noise stopped. Even Ferocious stood on his hind legs in his cage to see what kind of strange animal had made such a piercing sound.

  Everyone turned to find Cecil with his fingers still in his mouth.

  “Cecil!” Mrs. Young was irked. “Haven’t we talked about that earsplitting talent of yours?”

  “Sorry, but this is important,” Cecil said. “I just don’t think that there’s any question about who that ‘Friend of Ferocious’ is supposed to be.”

  “Who?” asked a few dozen voices.

  I cringed, because I knew what was coming next.

  “It’s gotta be Captain Nobody,” Cecil said, pointing back to me, alone at my desk.

  I saw a cloud of confusion pass over Colby’s face, and I heard Darryl mutter, “Who’s the kid in the costume?” Mrs. Young whispered to them, while my classmates nodded and exchanged shrugs. Suddenly Darryl exclaimed, “Are you serious?” and Colby added the inevitable “I didn’t know Chris Newman had a younger brother.”

  Ferocious the Ferret turned out to be quite a distraction, because, throughout the day, my classmates were allowed to visit him in groups of three or four. Mrs. Young was constantly interrupting her lessons to remind kids to keep their fingers out of his cage and not to tease him, so we didn’t get much class work done.

  When the lunchtime bell rang, though, my classmates immediately forgot our furry visitor and rushed out, followed by Mrs. Young. I was left alone.
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br />   I wasn’t hungry. Instead, I was worried. How can I go to the hospital if I have to take Ferocious home for the night?

  I wandered over to Ferocious’s cage, pulled up a chair and lowered my face to his level. “I bet you know my brother,” I said. “Chris Newman? He’s on the team.”

  Ferocious tilted his sleek little black-and-white head to one side and gazed into my eyes. Maybe he was just reacting to my mask, but for a second I thought that he might actually be hearing me. So I gulped, and because I couldn’t think of anybody else I could say it to, I told Ferocious, “I want my brother back.”

  He made a chuckling sound, and then he went back to rolling around in his shredded newspaper. Right then, I felt totally lame for confiding my deepest wish to an animal. Even if he is a mascot.

  By the end of the day, Cecil and JJ had figured out that I wasn’t exactly overjoyed about how they had volunteered me as a ferret babysitter, so they offered to keep me company on the way home.

  “I thought I was doing you a favor,” Cecil said as we left the school grounds.

  I didn’t answer. Ferocious’s cage banged against my thigh with every step.

  “Hey, think of it this way,” he suggested. “Until your brother gets home, Ferocious can fill in for him. They’re both Fillmore Ferrets, after all.”

  “So, what’re you saying?” I snapped. “I don’t get my brother back, but I get a fuzzy ferret instead?”

  Cecil backed away. “Okay. Sorry I said anything.”

  “Look, I’m having a really bad week, okay?” I started to say. “So maybe you can understand why I’m not thrilled to be dragging Ferocious the Fillmore Ferret home . . .”

  “Okay, Captain Nobody,” Cecil tried to calm me.

  “And I don’t want to have to feed him dinner or clean up his poop . . .”

  “Well, maybe one of us could take him,” JJ suggested.

  “Let me finish!” I snarled. “And I don’t want to pretend like he’s a replacement for my brother, because he’s not.”